Friday, June 24, 2005

A Man And A Woman: The curse of the monk’s hand
*episode 7*

Miroku kneels at the edge of the clearing. In his left hand, he cradles his wounded right. Nearby sits Kutsumaru with Akume on his lap. The woman begins, “Our stories start with two mortals. They both have one thing in common, they are now dead. One was a man who took great joy from killing. However, combat held no interest for him. So he lived as a wanderer; he would come upon a village and then wait for nightfall. In the morning, he would be gone and the villagers would find several of their kin mutilated and killed. In a few years, he killed dozens of people. However, this was not enough. He had the will for slaughter, but as a mortal he was too weak. The other was a prostitute in a city. She had been promised many things by many men, and all of them had been lying. Naraku found these two. He gave each of them a shard of the sacred jewel. The man took his shard and destroyed an entire village. The woman, on the other hand, wanted nothing more then to rise above her miserable life. She accepted one last promise from one last man, Naraku. The price for this promise was exactly what all the other men had wanted, however Naraku had other things in mind. When she came to him, he killed her and he bathed the shard in her blood. The man on the other hand, brought down the wrath of a nobleman. His new strength had been enough to take the villagers by surprise, but the lord’s warriors soon brought him to his knees. As he was being brought before the lord for judgment, the people of the lord’s castle-city, having heard of his crimes, overwhelmed the guards and tore him limb from limb. Naraku took both of the jewel shards and he built around them two new incarnations. First my beloved. He has that man’s passion for killing as well as the strength of a demon. However, a targetless killer would be of little use to our master. He finished me and sent me to gain control. For that woman, sex was her curse; for me it is my reason for being. Kutsumaru has a limitless passion and I have limitless capacity to receive passion. We go well together.” Seeing that he is becoming aggravated, she pulls her lovers face to hers and kisses him. She gently pats his cheek and turns back to the monk, “Of course, we know your story. We also know that that story will end momentarily when you are sucked into your ever expanding windtunnel. So, any last words? Defiant statements? Regrets?” Overcoming the pain, Miroku smirks, “Regrets? Just one…” He says something so softly that the demons’ ears can just barely tell that he spoke. Rising to her feet, Akume says, “Sorry, I didn’t quite catch that.” The monk repeats himself in the same tone of voice. The demon walks forward until she is standing just before him. She bends down and cocks her head. Looking up with a triumphant grin on his face, Miroku rips the sutra beads from his right hand opening the void.
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